“Now we just go up the mountain?” Enoa watched a patrol of Saw-wings, wheeling directly above the Pinnacle. “There isn’t like a cable car guy who starts it?”
“Not if everything works.” Orson leaned down at the dashboard. “These skimmers are supposed to be modified with magnetic clamps that can activate with the cables and tracks. This might be—”
Enoa fell back against her seat. The world shifted, twisted sixty-degrees upward, angled toward the line of mountains above them. They began to move, bound to the track’s steep ascent, like the first hill on a roller coaster.
“Just didn’t wait long enough,” Orson said. “And I see Jaleel and Dr. Stan are locked in with their tracks too. We’re still together.”
Far above, the Pinnacle could not be seen. They rose toward a gap in the spine of mountains’ peaks, a stone horizon, the manmade holdfast plateau.
Enoa slowed and steadied her breathing. But she didn’t reach out to the motions of the air and the vessels moving in the sky. She shut her eyes.
She’d been sensed before. The Shapers in Nimauk had sensed her. The fake Sight-stealers had felt her presence before she’d learned anything, before she’d known anything. Major Rinlee and Sir Rowan had sensed her too. But she’d been actively shaping those times, hiding Littlefield’s defenders or hiding the Crystal Dune scientists with their Antler Clan escort.
Nimauk though – the other Shapers had known her fear. Just her emotions had been enough to give her away.
And what did that mean for her studies? Shaping wasn’t genetic. Aunt Su had said as much. If only training made the Shaper, and she’d yet to be trained, how could anyone have sensed her?
She couldn’t know. But if her fear could reveal her to the Shapers Kol Maros assembled, Helmont’s forces could sense her too. So she couldn’t allow herself to feel fear. She couldn’t let herself feel anything.
A larger airship lumbered into the circle of Saw-wings. The craft was dagger-shaped, with a curved bottom like a seafaring vessel. Two cables, like the one they rode, but exposed, shot out from the bottom of the ship. They struck positions along the base plateau, beyond the visible line of rock.
“Popular spot today,” Orson said. “Maybe that’s how they get their food. I didn’t see anything about them having farming up here.”
A series of solid black cases descended the cables from the hovering ship. They moved faster from the craft than the skimmers’ ascent.
“You’re sure they’ll just let us drive away when we’re done?” Enoa asked. “Captain Daine never parks his skimmers in some big Liberty Corps garage?”
“They need to drop the trailers at the rendezvous spot for Derzelas to recover,” Orson said. “And then they usually go on to the village. But as long as nobody stops us before we get back to the Aesir, then it’s over. Even those fighters won’t catch us then.”
“What about their Manifest Destiny?” Enoa asked. “That has to be somewhere near here.”
“With the size of that thing and its cloak…” Orson shrugged. “It could take up the whole sky above the valley and we wouldn’t even know. Or it could be miles from here, tethered to some high-elevation launch pad. They must leave it cloaked. Hopefully it’ll stay invisible, wherever it is. A ship that big isn’t easy to get moving, and I doubt they have the manpower to keep it running constantly.”
The skimmer crested the stone horizon. They had arrived at the Pinnacle.
Enoa remembered the blurry photos she’d seen, the same decades-old satellite images Orson had collected. She’d seen the floor plans and imagined the labyrinth of hallways.
“It’s just a big warehouse,” Enoa said. “Or like a warehouse had a baby with an office building.”
Its walls were a mottled gray, like a half-hearted attempt to imitate the rock cliffs. Other than the top level, its windows were small and square and tinted. The endless gray stretched out in both directions, as far as could be seen, dominating the leveled mountaintop.
“Were you expecting a castle?” Orson asked. “The Hierarchia thought their nineteen-sixties offices would be the standard for fortresses the way medieval castles had their turrets and moats.” He raised his voice and spoke with an affected, arrogant tone. “Behold our milquetoast imperialism and despair!”
The skimmer docked on a wide, flat ledge extending from the Pinnacle’s wall, where the base met the mountaintop. The ledge ran along the front of the base, wide enough for unloading stations and patrols of troopers, plus parking for skimmers and trailers alike – all that and with room to spare.
By the time Enoa followed Orson from the skimmer’s side ramp, the other two craft had docked beside them. All sat in a row, beneath a long docking station – a metal framework that stretched over all three parking berths. The structure supported a grappling arm with four curved fingers, longer than Enoa was tall.
Dr. Stan and Jaleel joined them at the left skimmer. Dr. Stan guided the supply cart.
There was no barrier at the valley end of the ledge, no wall and no fencing. After several meters of decking and mountainside, the ledge simply ended. Nothing separated them from the far fall back down to the valley floor, only thousands of feet of open air.
The wind struck with enough force to jar Enoa on her feet. The circling Saw-wings screamed above their heads. The ships were still many meters away, but they looked close enough to touch, as they whipped around the unloading craft.
The stream of boxes continued down the cables from the supplying ship. Far down the ledge, two Rifle Troopers worked at an unloading dock like theirs. They received the cases from the ship above, as these reached the ends of the cables. The troopers slid the cases aside as they unclasped from the magnetic grip. They guided them all through an opening in the floor. Enoa saw more three-berth docking ports further along the ledge.
“Remember.” Orson spoke in a lull of wind and overhead noise. “No comms. And don’t mess around with the HUDS on these things. How are we doing?”
“No problems,” Dr. Stan said.
“Great,” Orson said. “We feeling good? Jaleel, are you ready?” Jaleel nodded. “You get set up.”
Jaleel ran his hands along the base of the framework. A small square of gray metal flipped around, revealing a number pad.
Orson and Dr. Stan deactivated the repulsors mounted at the first trailer’s wheel wells. The trailer touched down onto the floor. Orson then maneuvered the skimmer free and parked it further down the ledge. They repeated this process with the other trailers.
“You didn’t bring a cheat sheet, like Orson?” Enoa watched Jaleel work.
“That would look so shady.” He sighed. “I think I have it figured out.”
Orson and Dr. Stan finished with the last skimmer and joined them at the control pad. All three trailers sat on their wheels, in their docking spaces.
Jaleel pressed his hand against the number pad. A hidden hatch swung aside where the nearest skimmer had floated. Red warning lights lit, circling the opening. Inside, a chute fell away into darkened depths.
The grappler arm reached from the overhead structure and curled its fingers around the trailer. It lifted it. It spun.
The airborne trailer slammed into its neighbor. Crash! Metal met metal. Enoa’s ears rang.
The grappling arm recoiled. Then it tried again. Crash! It tried again. Crash! The second trailer lifted. It leaned sideways. Only its right wheels touched the ground. Jaleel frantically jabbed his fingers against the keypad.
“No. No. No.” He hit the same button again and again and again. “Shit no. Please NO! Goddammit!”
The grappler arm swung back and released the trailer. It fell to the ledge in its parking spot. The other trailer paused, still perched on two tires.
“Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall.” Jaleel quickly chanted, like the speed and intensity of his words could command the trailer. “Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall.”
“Oh my god…” Dr. Stan began.
That trailer also fell back into place. Both trailers were left dented, white paint worn away, but they were returned to their starting positions.
Enoa found the unloading Rifle Troopers watching them. But their airborne delivery continued. The boxes from the floating ship did not cease, and the troopers turned away.
“I always hated the claw machines.” Orson’s voice didn’t match his words. They couldn’t hide his tension or his anger.
“I told you I didn’t know what I was doing!” Jaleel leaned down at the controls. “How many times did I tell you? I should – should – be able to get the claw to be gentler with them, but that doesn’t keep them from hitting each other again. That doesn’t fix this. The hand didn’t go high enough! The manual said that was automatic.”
“Can we move the trailers?” Enoa asked. “And only sit them here one at a time. Then there’ll be nothing to hit.”
“No,” Jaleel said. “There are so many reasons that won’t work.” He hit more keys. “That would actually take forever.”
“You should’ve brought the manual.” Orson pulled his cheat sheet notecard from his pocket and held the unintelligible scrawl up to his helmet’s visor. “Or at least taken notes. We better hope I have something about this.”
“Jaleel.” Dr. Stan touched Orson on the arm. “If the hand doesn’t automatically lift the trailer, be logical. Do you remember anything that might pertain to the grappler’s fine motor skills? I only skimmed the diagram, but I believe there was a slider to raise and lower the arm. Is there anything that looks like that?”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Jaleel nodded. He touched his hand to the controls. He looked from side to side.
“Take a deep breath,” Dr. Stan said. “We’ll find it.”
“I might…” Jaleel reached up toward one of the controls. The grappler arm retracted back toward the top of the structure.
Jaleel hit another button combination. The arm lowered again and curled its fingers around the trailer. It lifted back to the top of the structure and rotated, 180 degrees. The arm gently placed the trailer with its rear door now facing the unloading station. That trailer door slid open, aligning with the ramp in the floor.
Three long, jointed arms reached up along the ramp from the ledge. Two had fingers of their own that stretched into the trailer and brought out a black case like the ones descending from the ship. The third arm sent a scanning red light at the case. The system chirped happily. Then all three arms retracted back into the opening, taking the case with it.
“I think I got it now.” Jaleel removed his hand from the wall. He took a deep breath. “You were right, Dr. Stan.”
“Are you sure you can handle this arm without assistance?” Dr. Stan asked.
“Maybe we can unload the skimmers together and go together to the terminal?” Jaleel asked.
“There could be more scrutiny that way,” Orson said. “All four of us go down there? No. Let’s just test this system and see what else you need, Jaleel.”
“I don’t know what I need to know!” Jaleel hissed. “It’s too much! How many times did I tell you that? How would I know what problems will happen?”
“You should’ve brought your cheat sheet,” Orson said. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about remembering and being clever at the same time.”
“A cheat sheet is useless if the manual is wrong!” Jaleel actually yelled. Both unloading Riflemen looked toward the sound.
“Please,” Dr. Stan said. “Orson, you’re not helping. Let’s briefly reassess. No plan made while panicked ever works. Jaleel, do you understand the system well enough to perform more adjustments like you just did?”
“I think so,” he said. “But I didn’t... What else don’t I know?”
“I can at least be another pair of eyes,” Enoa said. “Even if I don’t know how to change anything, I can watch where everything is and where it’s going. And I can remind him to breathe and stay calm.”
“If an issue should happen again,” Dr. Stan said. “It wouldn’t be totally unreasonable to use the comms, so long as we all remember who we’re supposed to be.”
“They might be able to analyze vocal records,” Orson said. “I don’t like it. But if that’s what you need to feel comfortable. Sure. You can call the Inventory Captain. But I think you’ll be great. Both of you.”
“I won’t let you down, sir.” Jaleel saluted, some small attempt at humor. His hand trembled, and he returned it to his side.
“At ease,” Orson chuckled. “Doc, let’s go. The clock’s ticking.”
* * *
Orson followed the schematics in his mind, followed the decades-old map.
The elevator waited just inside the nearest command entrance.
So far so good.
With a swipe of the Inventory Card Key, the elevator lowered Orson and Dr. Stan two levels down into the side of the mountain.
So far so good.
The expected squad patrolled the terminal level. Orson heard the march of their booted feet from the far side of the L-shaped passage. But they weren’t in sight, nowhere that demanded a proper performance from Orson’s Captain role. No protocols or decorum to follow or risk discovery – just a walk through the bland, beige hallway and then the terminal.
Dr. Stan wheeled the supply cart beside him. She kept pace with him, a step behind and to his right.
Orson kept his own pace even, unhurried, as if unconcerned. He could see the terminal door, the shining black card-reader built into the side. Only about twenty feet separated them from the doorway.
Orson counted the distance. Eight long, white floor tiles to go. Only two more cold-light, pyramid wall sconces. Only a short space of the bland hallway and he could have the next hint in finding the Dreamside Road.
But the terminal door opened before they got there. Another captain exited the room, the door closing behind him.
The captain looked right at Orson.
“Last again, this month,” the captain said. “I have to shuttle all the way down from the Scythe, and you just take your ride up the hill.” He shook his head. “What held you up? Were our dealers late or are you still trying to score with that blonde who brings the paperwork sometimes? What’s her name?”
Orson raised his left middle finger and didn’t break stride. The other captain snorted with laughter and continued down the hallway in the opposite direction.
“Have a good weekend, Daine,” the captain said.
“Yeah.” Orson spoke to the bottom of his helmet, where the mic would distort his voice the most, make it mechanical, inhuman. “You too.”
Orson raised the Card Key to the card-reader. With a click, the door opened.
So far so good.
They found the console room empty. It was a square space, lined with vintage monitors. Overhead lights lit for them, and more of the pyramid sconces.
They walked inside.
* * *
Enoa and Jaleel stood on opposite sides of the unloading framework. Enoa looked toward the base, but she focused on nothing, saw nothing, thought nothing.
“I hope Wesley is okay.” Jaleel spoke at a normal volume, but sounded like a whisper over the wind and the roar of aircraft. “I don’t think he’s been alone this long since we’ve had him. Maybe he should’ve gone with Teddy and April.”
“Too late for that.” Enoa felt him move against the wind, sensed his air displacement. He fidgeted from side to side, mindlessly nervous. Enoa’s awareness of his movements was instinctual and automatic. She closed her eyes, as if she could close off all her senses.
“I’m worried about him too,” she said. “But you’re moving around too much. I don’t think their troopers would do that.”
“How do you know what I’m…” he began. “Hey! I thought you weren’t going to use your air-motion sense. That’s what you said.”
“I’m trying!” She squeezed her eyes tighter. “It’s like a totally new sense, like I learned to… I don’t know… Imagine you could never smell anything before and then suddenly you can. And that changes everything, because now it’s a new way to experience the world. Now you know how grass smells or the way coffee smells or even the way you smell. And you can’t shut it out. And you can’t...”
She felt someone else approaching, four people, armored, walking from her left. She stayed silent.
“You can’t what?” Jaleel asked.
“How long d’you think he’ll last today?” one of the approaching troopers spoke.
“No way to tell,” another answered. “He’s all over the place. Depends if they shoot at Gimp too. Traitor’s a little bitch with two shields.”
Enoa risked a glance to the left. Four Liberty Corps Rifle Troopers followed the walkway that led between the docking stations and the Pinnacle’s wall. They held long blasters over their shoulders.
“Should’ve plummeted him weeks ago.” A third trooper adjusted the rifle at his shoulder. “Imagine if we turned Alliance. We wouldn’t even get a plummet, just the firing squad and some well-done traitor meat for the buzzards.”
“We aren’t the Czar’s own men,” the first said. “That’s chain of command, son. Even a baron’s gotta wait for his orders when it’s the Czar talking.” The four troopers passed by on the base side of the docking station.
Traitor? Shields? Enoa imagined the wall of light burning its way along the hill outside Littlefield.
“And here’s little Lenz, still our delivery boy.” The third trooper yelled.
“Jesus H. Christ!” shouted the second trooper. “What’d you do to get stuck out in the cold for a full cycle?”
“Just paying my dues.” One of the troopers, Lenz, answered from the bottom of his unloading cable.
“Bullshit,” the second answered. “Nobody gets the full trip unless they earn it. Even the rock-humpers rotate. Don’t know the two that Daine’s got back there today.”
“They must be new,” Lenz answered. “They didn’t know to raise the arm. Their trailers got a real wallop. They were yelling, and Daine was yelling. He’ll be last again, for sure.”
Enoa felt Jaleel tense. Even that slight motion stood out in her mind. She forced a full, calming breath through her lungs.
“Is that right?” the second rifleman laughed. “Maybe they’ll be out here for a full cycle too. You can finally make some friends. ”
“We followed the manual!” Enoa shouted over the wind. “It didn’t say anything about adjusting the height.”
“The manual’s shit,” Lenz answered. “When the manual was written the unloading system didn’t even work. It got updated multiple times during the IHSA days. Rule of thumb around here, don’t take any of the old manuals as gospel. You’re learning faster than a lotta the plebes. We had one last year who knocked a whole row off the ledge and got the grappler stuck past the rim. Had to call Sir Hiram to get it loose.”
“Look at Lenzy here get all perky,” the third Rifleman said. “Is that why you’re up here, Lenz? Command had to isolate you, keep you out of the base? Here’s the only place women ever talked to you? Hate to break it to you, but the helmet’s gotta come off eventually. Once they see that mug of yours it won’t matter—”
“Why are you boys up here?” The second unloading Rifle Trooper interrupted. “Spectating again?”
“We can’t miss our favorite show,” the first Rifleman answered. “Geber’s traitor barbecue, starring Kol Maros.”
“Do you watch because he’s a traitor or because you like seeing somebody in that white armor get roasted?” Lenz asked.
“Both,” the first Rifleman laughed. “You get done picking up the mail, you come on up. We’ll leave the ladder out for you.”
Enoa followed their footfalls as the four took the walkway beyond the unloading dock. They walked yards and yards along the outer wall of the base, so far away that the echo of their steps and their motion was dim in Enoa’s mind. She strained her senses in the way she’d strain her vision, hoping to recognize a friend’s face on a dark night.
The four troopers stopped at a point along the wall. It rotated like the control panel had. All four climbed the ladder hidden beneath. Enoa lost sense of them as they reached the Pinnacle’s roof.
“I need to go up there.” By the time Enoa lost sense of the troopers, she’d rounded the side of the unloading framework.
“What?” Jaleel turned away from the robotic appendages and the unloading process. “Up where?”
“They have Maros,” she said. “And he’s here because he warned us. We need to see what they’re doing to him.”
“That won’t help him. If he really isn’t with them anymore, the best way we can help is doing our jobs. Now please, let’s stop talking about this.”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she said. “How much longer do I have until the trailers need to switch?”
“Fifteen minutes at the most. I don’t know!”
Further along the walkway, the ship finished its unloading. The craft retracted its cables and drifted away. The troopers closed their cargo ports and proceeded away from them.
“If we’d acted right away, Maros would be safe now,” she said. “Fifteen minutes is enough time to see what happened to him. I have to look. It’s not like I can do anything to help you if there’s a problem before we switch trailers. And the other troopers don’t seem to care what we do.”
“You already made up your mind.” He groaned. “Didn’t you?”
She nodded and started along the walkway toward the ladder.
* * *
“I found your island,” Dr. Stan said.
Orson watched the intermingled mess of numbers and letters scroll across the terminal’s main monitor.
Additional lights had lit as they’d entered the room. The wall behind the monitors was made of inches-thick glass. Beyond was another room where wall-to-wall towering processors stood. Some glowed or blinked pale colors. Others had moving parts, spinning disks and wheels – many decades of IHSA learning compiled and protected.
“Already?” Orson asked. “That’s amazing.”
The main monitor trailed wiring, leading to additional keyboards and instruments, to memory storage on disk and drive, and to a series of nondescript metal boxes Orson did not recognize.
They’d ignored all of these. The external floppy disk drive stood beneath the desk – the only surface in the room that wasn’t spotless. They’d wiped away the thin film of dust and inserted the first of the floppies they’d hidden with Orson’s coat and weapons.
“I have all the pieces,” she corrected. “I’ve narrowed down relevant telemetry that could indicate a sizable landmass and cross-referenced that with IHSA map data, to find those that are missing. And I have a collection of coordinates, five sets, indicating currently-unlisted, unplotted, or uncharted islands that could support a population. I’ve also routed the files listed ‘Knightschurch’.”
“Five?” Orson leaned closer to the monitor, as if the scrolling feed would transform into a convenient, readable list. “How are there five secret islands in the world?”
“There are five in the north Pacific,” she said. “Five that meet my criteria, out of the thousands of known and unknown landmasses in that area of the world. But everything can be narrowed down. If I’m not mistaken, the Liberty Corps is aware of the specific location of Knightschurch.”
“Shit.”
“I think that’s all they know. To quote them, “ ‘there is a possibility that this Knightschurch is a rebirth-sized enclave. Like the mammoths that survived on a tiny spit land in the polar sea, living long after the last Ice Age – this is a refuge of Covenant Knights. The Order that died at the birth of our Hierarchia may still live there. We must proceed with all caution.’ ”
Dr. Stan pressed two keys. With a click, the current floppy slid free of the port at the floor. Orson took it and fit it back in the case in the inventory cart. He handed her a fresh floppy.
“It will take two or three more disks to record everything,” she said. “But then you’ll have what we came for. What should I find next?”